MadCar (Plugin for Car Animation)

#101

Sorry to be a total newb here - I don’t see point constraint in the animation > constraints flyout. Do I need to set this up in reaction manager?

#102

OK, well I got it mostly working (just the orientation) - I was trying the opposite of what you said, attaching the dummy to the madcar instead of the other way around. Thank you very much! Would still like to know what a point constraint is though. :slight_smile:

#103

Also, since your an animator maybe you can help me with this. I have created a VERY basic bone system for the car and have constrained the dummy orientation to the bone. The problem I am having is that when the cars chassis rotates, all of the objects (tires etc) rotate with it. I would like the tires to stay on the ground and the bones create the suspension working. Does that make sense. Here is a video of what I am talking about.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8dSfZmgLQLA

The max file is here www.davetyner.com/st/madCarImportTest.max if you have a moment to look at it.

Thank you!

#104

My bad, I think maya called it a point constraint, the menu option is “position constraint” in the Animation>Constraint menu.

I can’t get to the youtube video from work, and don’t have time right now to look at the max file, but I don’t understand your suspension question, madCar already gives you that to an extent, so I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to do.

#105

Sorry, I know my original post is unclear. I made a bone rig for my model. Basically what I am trying to do use the madcar for animating the articulation of the vehicle parts and translate that movement into the bone rig I made for the car. Does that make sense?

#106

That makes sense, what you need to do then is position constraint the wheel bones to the dummy that has already been collapsed. Or disconnect the wheel bones from the chassis bone and instead parent them to the dummy. judging from your machinima link I am guessing that you are trying to convert this into a rig for export to a game engine? Not sure if you can deal with separate bones or not, but that’s the basic idea, you need to disconnect (directly or indirectly) the wheel bones from the chassis bones, otherwise you’ll get the rotation issues you’re already experiencing. If you keep having issues just make another thread and we’ll work on it in there, don’t want to hijack the madCar thread too much. :slight_smile:

#107

OK, I hate to be the newbie, but I can’t get realtime driving to work on my own scene.

I have no problems with the scene that comes with MadCar, I'm driving around like crazy. It's wonderful. :)

But in my own scene, my car won't go forwards or backwards, or even touch the ground plane. It's like the simulation isn't activated - but I can see on the MadCar status window that it registers my Throttle and Brake commands. And it records something, because when I play back the animation afterwards, the wheels give a little jitter on the first frames.

I'm attaching the file here, hoping someone can help me.

Thanks for this great plugin! Can't believe it's free.

- Jonas

EDIT: Tried creating a new car in the demo scene - works fine. Still don’t know what’s broken in my own scene. I tried creating a new scene from scratch again, but the same thing happens.

#108

Aye caramba, I think I know what the problem is! Framerate!

If I change the framerate to 25 fps PAL (everything I do is in PAL), MadCar doesn’t work…

True? And is there a workaround?

Thanks, :slight_smile:

  • Jonas

EDIT: a cumbersome workaround would be to record in NTSC, but render/playback in PAL…

#109

jussing, whenever that same exact problem (the car not responding after hitting the DRIVE NOW button) I usually update the surface, and recalc again - it always works for me after I do these things. :slight_smile:

#110

Great plugin ,work fine , thanks. and the animation of the mustang is fantastic too.

jussing:
I had similar problem and I did as em3 Says, but , i see your file and you must set the frame count ( in mad car settincs “recalc” ) At least to 1 ( wen i open the file i find it to 0 ) , then work fine.

regards.

#111

@em3: Thanks, but, I did that several times and it had no effect. The moment I changed the framerate back to NTSC, everything was easy.

@jimmydog: I’ll try that tomorrow at work, thanks (because that might actually be related to framerate)

  • Jonas
#112

That worked, Jimmy!!

Funny thing is, the Recalc is default set to 1 in NTSC mode, but the moment you change to PAL (or another framerate), it snaps to 0.

But manually setting it to 1 does the trick. Wonderful!

  • Jonas
#113

A quick test:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-EUTfO8qrgc

Karba, this is an absolutely wonderful tool. I can’t believe it’s free. Thank you!

  • Jonas
#114

nice camera movement! lol that was funny. I just update my UT3 compilation with a bunch of madcar stuff in it.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=070W2fJA4as

or a higher quality version (right click save as)

HERE

Thanks Karba!

#115

Those buggys are awesome! But don’t they intersect at 0:26? Or are they just close? :wink:

Anyway, for the camera movement, I just animated another car to hold the camera. Simple. :slight_smile: Makes it look more like you’d really film it.

  • Jonas
#116

Karba,
thanks for ur free madcar plugin. It’s working great!!!

#117

sweet plugin! thanks for letting it go for free. great to see people doing this!

i have one question. The wheel currently pivots from the wheel centre. in reality wheels pivot for steering from the end of the axel/suspension arm. a feature update maybe?

anyway… anyone have a good solution to fix this. because im in the process of rigging my dune buggy, and its causing some problems. guess i could just bring my axel length down, but then the wheel contacts would be in different place.

apart from that its spot on!

#118

Tim, how about position/orientation constrain a dummy to the MCwheel, then position/orientatoin constrain the tire mesh to the dummy. That way you could adjust your axel length and get the desired results? It’s late so I may not have read your post very well.

edit: I need some help on my settings for my buggy - anxious to see yours in action

#119

I could just link it…im fine with just offsetting the wheel from the madcar wheel, but the road will be bumpy, and it will mean my mesh wheel wont have the same contact as the madcar wheel. but the action will be fast, so it might not be that bad.

heres an image.

edit…might just condense the brake unit down more, and bring it into the wheel hub, thus reducing the amount of offset!

but it would be a nice added feature!

#120

WOW nice detail!! Looking forward to seeing that bad boy in action.

What purpose does the mad car axle serve? I never add it to my setups. Does it control the suspension?